BXP Plans Jersey City Residential in Joint Venture With Albanese and CrossHarbor

BXP is ready to start the ground-up development of a $400 million, 670-unit market-rate apartment building in Jersey City, N.J., now that its joint venture with CrossHarbor Capital and Albanese Organization has been established, the developer announced Thursday.

Together, the three partners will develop a full-block residence at 290 Coles Street. It will include two towers reaching 14 and 22 stories, as well as 350 parking spaces and 13,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, according to the developers. The project is expected to be completed by March 2028.

The almost 2-acre site sits just north of Interstate 78 between Coles Street, Jersey Avenue, and 16th and 17th streets in north Jersey City. BXP  jumped into the project and now owns a 19 percent common equity share in the venture, while Albanese owns a 14 percent interest and CrossHarbor Capital owns the remaining 67 percent. 

BXP is providing an additional $65 million in preferred equity funds for the development.

“This was a situation where Albanese and CrossHarbor had acquired the property in 2022 and were looking to recapitalize it leading into 2023 and 2024, and there were just a lot of things that came together that it made sense for us [to join in], Hilary Spann, executive vice president for the New York region at BXP, said. “It’s in a market that we had identified as a target market for multifamily investments. Jersey City is high on that list.”

The residences will be in what’s being dubbed Jersey City’s SoHo West neighborhood — named so because it is south of Hoboken and west of New York — an area that has been transforming from an industrial center into a hub for luxury living.  

“The SoHo West neighborhood is really coming into its own as a node,” Spann said. “There is an awesome park across the street from the site, there is an amphitheater, there are playgrounds. And then all around that park and a few blocks off the park there’s new residential that has been built or converted from old warehouses. So it really does have a presence of its own.”

The other thing that makes the area so attractive, Spann said, is that the Jersey City municipal government has been very constructive in the addition of new residential buildings in the neighborhood. 

“That has really enabled folks to have confidence that as they’re going through the planning process, that they can execute,” she added. “I think it’s fair to say that land values in Jersey City are attractive relative to what you would have to pay for a similarly situated property in the five boroughs. And so that allows you to be really competitive on your rental rates.”

And there’s plenty of activity going on in what’s been sometimes called New York City’s “sixth borough.” An estimated 17,975 units hit the North Jersey market by the end of 2024 with about 13,000 under construction or in the pre-leasing phase, as Commercial Observer previously reported.

Projects include Kushner Companies’ 1,723-unit development at One Journal Square, Bravo Property Trust’s 15-story tower at 682 State Route 440, and Alpine Residential’s 200-unit project at 270 Johnston Avenue and 66 Monitor Street.

Amanda Schiavo can be reached at aschiavo@commercialobserver.com